They limbered up in fine style on the south coast, with a scintillating display from Philippe Coutinho, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah sinking Brighton 5-1.

Emre Can headed them in front, Firmino capped flowing counter-attacks with the second and third before Coutinho’s cheeky free-kick flew under the Brighton wall and a Lewis Dunk own-goal completed the scoring.

Skipper Henderson was delighted with the performance and called for more of the same in midweek, especially from their fearsome threesome up front.

“It’s very pleasing,” Henderson told the club’s official website. “Overall for 90 minutes we played very well, controlled the game with the ball, scored some brilliant goals and defensively I thought we were solid.

“It was a brilliant second goal on the counter-attack. The front three, Salah, Firmino and Coutinho – fantastic goals.

“So overall we’ve got to keep that going as a team. It’s a big game in midweek and we need to keep the momentum going.”